U.K.’s Richest Woman Gets £300 Million Annual Pay From Bet365 Group

(Bloomberg) --

Even after a salary cut, Denise Coates' paycheck is hard to beat.

The 54-year-old founder and co-chief executive officer of Bet365 Group Ltd. got about 300 million pounds ($400 million) in pay and dividends in the year to March 2021, according to a registry filing, taking her total pay from the online bookmaker's past two financial years to more than $1 billion.

Coates's salary of 249.6 million pounds alone makes her one of the world's best-compensated bosses, even though it is down about 40% from the previous period when she pocketed a total of 469 million pounds.

It also strengthens her status as the U.K.'s richest woman and comes after she boosted her majority stake in Bet365 from taking control of shares last year previously held by her father, Peter, filings show. Coates -- who is now set to rejoin the world's 500 biggest fortunes -- has earned more than $1.8 billion over the past decade, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

A spokesperson for Coates said she is Bet365's highest-paid director.

Founded about two decades ago, Bet365's business has benefited from the growing popularity of online sports betting. The Stoke-on-Trent, England-based company posted revenue of 2.8 billion pounds for the financial year ended March 28, 2021, little changed from a year earlier as the pandemic continued to weigh on sports wagering from postponed or canceled events.

After graduating from Sheffield University with a degree in econometrics, Coates trained to become an accountant and took over a small chain of betting shops her father owned on the side.

She became managing director of the business at age 22, according to a Staffordshire University release, and expanded the number of shops before deciding to shift the business online. Along with Bet365, Coates and her family also own Stoke City Football Club.